The lawyer's field guide to a fast-moving field.

Harvey has secured $550 million in a new funding round, pushing the legal AI startup's valuation to $15.5 billion. The massive raise underlines continued investor demand for generative AI tools tailored for the legal industry.

Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter issued a memo instructing Justice Department staff to replace the term 'AI' with 'Super Intelligence' in official communications, including court filings when appropriate. The move enforces a presidential executive order aimed at shifting language around artificial intelligence across federal agencies.

A study by Outsell and CCC reveals that third-party copyrighted content is uploaded into AI tools 20 times per week per person in law firms, nearly double the general corporate average. The report highlights growing legal exposure as enterprise AI adoption outpaces copyright policy awareness.

A law firm has filed an antitrust lawsuit alleging that Westlaw's acquisition of AI legal platform Casetext was a 'killer acquisition' designed to eliminate a disruptive competitor and lock in legal research pricing.

Legal tech startup Concorda, founded by attorneys Sam Oh and Ke Ma, featured in ILTACON's Startup Alley with a litigation-focused AI platform. The database aggregates local court rules, judges' standing orders, and federal filing requirements to assist litigators with workflow-specific drafting and visual source verification.

The 2026 Government Legal Department Report from Thomson Reuters reveals accelerating AI adoption among government legal agencies driven by staffing shortages. However, 80% of surveyed government attorneys expressed concerns over data confidentiality, and 27% admitted to using unauthorized 'shadow AI' tools.

Fox Rothschild has promoted internally to fill two tech leadership roles, including a newly created Chief Data and Artificial Intelligence Officer position to oversee the firm's data strategy.

Personal injury legal-AI platform Supio has launched two new products: Case Communications, a matter-specific messaging layer, and Agent Simon, an AI agent designed to automate case-level tasks. The expansion marks a shift from point-solution document analysis into broader operational legal workflows for contingency-fee law firms.

AI-powered law firm Crosby detailed its internal evaluation framework for legal AI agents, combining deterministic structural checks with pairwise human-lawyer comparisons. The firm reports that tightening this feedback loop reduced contract review times by up to 80% for MSAs and NDAs.

Legal tech startup Legora scaled from $100 million to $200 million in annual recurring revenue in less than six months. Now operating in over 50 countries with a team of 900, the company recently transitioned from seat-based pricing to a consumption-based model to accommodate increasing usage of agentic legal workflows.

Brazilian legal technology startup Enter AI has raised R$500 million in a Series B funding round. The investment propels the company's valuation to R$6.4 billion, making it the first AI unicorn in Latin America.

Frontline Managed Services has acquired legal technology provider KL Software Technologies and its affiliate KLoBot. The undisclosed transaction aims to strengthen Frontline's AI business offerings for the legal industry.

Crunchbase data reveals well-funded AI startups are increasingly acquiring smaller firms to expand their platforms and acquire specialized talent. Legal tech startups Legora and Harvey are among the most active repeat acquirers, completing five and four acquisitions this year, respectively.

Ghent-based legal tech startup Falcon AI has raised €1.5 million in a pre-seed round led by Syndicate One. The company combines an AI contract review platform with human lawyer oversight from its affiliated law firm to offer flat-fee commercial agreement sign-offs.

Universal Music Group and Sony Music have filed a new copyright lawsuit against Suno alleging the AI platform trained its newer v6 model on outputs from its older, allegedly infringing models. The suit introduces a novel 'model laundering' theory, arguing that licensing deals with certain record labels cannot cleanse an AI model if it was built on pre-existing infringing outputs.

The Michigan Court of Appeals personally sanctioned a plaintiff's attorney in Barber v. Morawa for repeatedly citing fabricated AI-generated legal authorities in a medical liability case and on appeal.

California software company TradeSun has sued OpenAI in Northern California federal court, alleging that OpenAI's use of 'Astra' for its flagship GPT-6 models—including 'Astra for Law'—infringes its registered trademark. The suit relies on a reverse-confusion theory and seeks an injunction forcing OpenAI to drop the Astra name.

Texas Supreme Court justices indicated during oral arguments that the cost-saving benefits of using AI transcription tools like Skribe.ai likely outweigh accuracy concerns. The justices noted that trial courts have simple mechanisms to fix bad transcripts, such as reviewing the underlying audio or ordering a certified stenographer to re-transcribe.

A federal magistrate judge ruled that protective orders should enforce strict, criteria-based safeguards for AI tools handling opposing discovery materials rather than requiring formal consent for every software update. The court noted that while using AI on a party's own data carries self-managed risk, opposing confidential data requires enforceable guardrails against public training and unauthorized disclosure.

Speaking at the TILE Symposium, Senior Ninth Circuit Judge Margaret McKeown noted that 102 active AI cases are currently moving through the courts across copyright, privacy, and consumer protection. She also highlighted that pro se filings nearly doubled in 2025, attributing the rise in part to litigants relying on generative AI tools instead of traditional counsel.